BRANSFORD IN ARCADIA
OR
_THE LITTLE EOHIPPUS_
By EUGENE MANLOVE RHODES
Author of "Good Men and True"
NEW YORK
HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY
1914
Copyright, 1913,
By
CURTIS PUBLISHING CO.
Copyright, 1914,
By
HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY
_Published January, 1914_
CONTENTS
PROLOGUE
I THE PITCHER THAT WENT TO THE WELL
II FIRST AID
III MAXWELTON BRAES
IV THE ROAD TO ROME
V THE MASKERS
VI THE ISLE OF ARCADY
VII STATES-GENERAL
VIII ARCADES AMBO
IX TAKEN
X THE ALIBI
XI THE NETTLE, DANGER
XII THE SIEGE OF DOUBLE MOUNTAIN
XIII THE SIEGE OF DOUBLE MOUNTAIN (_continued_)
XIV FLIGHT
XV GOOD-BY
XVI THE LAND OF AFTERNOON
XVII TWENTIETH CENTURY
XVIII AT THE RAINBOW'S END
[Illustration: The Horses Were Unwilling to Enter the Circle of
Firelight.]
BRANSFORD IN ARCADIA
PROLOGUE
I
The long fall round-up was over. The wagon, homeward bound, made camp
for the last night out at the Sinks of Lost River. Most of the men,
worn with threescore night-guards, were buried under their tarps in
the deep sleep of the weary; sound as that of the just, and much more
common.
By the low campfire a few yet lingered: old-timers, iron men, whose
wiry and seasoned strength was toil-proof--and Leo Ballinger, for whom
youth, excitement and unsated novelty served in lieu of fitness.
The "firelighters," working the wide range again from Ancho to Hueco,
from the Mal Pais to Glencoe, fell silent now, to mark an unstaled
miracle.
The clustered lights of Rainbow's End shone redly, near and low.
Beyond, above, dominant, the black, unbroken bulk of Rainbow Range
shut out the east. The clear-cut crest mellowed to luminous curves,
feathery with far-off pines; the long skyline thrilled with frosty
fire, glowed, sparkled--the cricket's chirp was stilled; the slow, late
moon rose to a hushed and waiting world.
On the sharp crest she paused, irresolute, tip-toe, quivering, rosily
aflush. Above floated a web of gossamer. She leaped up, spurning the
black rim; glowed, palpitant, through that filmy lace--and all the
desert throbbed with vibrant light.
Cool and sweet and fresh, from maiden leagues of clean, brown earth the
desert winds made whisper in grass and fragrant shrub; yucca, mesquite
and greasewood swayed--so softly, you had not known save as the long
shadows courtesied and danced.
Leo flung up his hand. The air was wine to him. A year had left the
desert still new and strange. "Gee!" he said eloquently.
Headlight nodded. "You're dead right on that point, son. If Christopher
K. Columbus had only thought to beach his shallops on the sundown side
of this here continent he might have made a name for himself. Just
think how much different, hysterically, these United States----"
"_This_ United States," corrected Pringle dispassionately. Their
fathers had disagreed on the same grammatical point.
Headlight scowled. "By Jings! 'That _this_ United Colonies are, and of
right ought to be, free and independent States,'" he quoted. "I was
goin' to give you something new to exercise your talons on. You sit
here every night, ridin' broncs and four-footin' steers, and never
grab a horn or waste a loop, not once. Sure things ain't amusin'. Some
variety and doubtful accuracy, now, would develop our guessin' gifts."
Aforesaid Smith brandished the end-gate rod. "Them speculations of
yours sorter opens up of themselves. If California had been settled
first the salmon would now be our national bird instead of the
potato. Think of Arizona, mother of Presidents! Seat of government at
Milipitas; center of population about Butte; New Jersey howlin' about
Nevada trusts!" He impaled a few beef ribs and held them over the
glowing embers.
"Georgia and South Carolina would be infested by cow-persons
in décolleté leather panties," said Jeff Bransford. "New York
and Pennsylvania would be fondly turning a credulous ear to the
twenty-fourth consecutive solemn promise of Statehood--with the Senator
from Walla Walla urging admission of both as one mighty State with
Maryland and Virginia thrown in for luck."
Headlight forgot his pique. "Wouldn't the railroads sound funny,
though? Needles and Eastern, Northern Atlantic, Southern Atlantic,
Union, Western, Kansas and Central Atlantic! Earnest and continuous
demand for a President from east of the Mississippi. All the
prize-fights pulled off at Boston."
"Columbus done just right," said Pringle decisively. "You fellers ain't
got no imagination a-tall. If this Western country'd been settled
first, the maps would read: 'Northeast Territory.--Uninhabitable
wilderness; region of storm and snow, roaming savages and fierce wild
beasts.' When the intrepid explorer hit the big white weather he'd say,
'Little old San Diego's good enough for me!' Yes, sir!"
"Oh, well, climate alone doesn't account for the charm of this
country--nor scenery," said Leo. "You feel it, but you don't know why
it is."
"It sure agrees with your by-laws," observed Pringle. "You're a sight
changed from the furtive behemoth you was. You'll make a hand yet. But,
even now, your dimensions from east to west is plumb fascinatin'. I'd
sure admire to have your picture to put in my cornfield."
"Very well, Mr. Pringle: I'll exchange photographs with you," said Leo
artlessly. A smothered laugh followed this remark; uncertainty as to
what horrible and unnamed use Leo would make of Pringle's pictured face
appealed to these speculative minds.
"I've studied out this charm business," said Jeff. "See if I'm not
right. It's because there's no habitually old men here to pattern
after, to steady us, to make us ashamed of just staying boys. Now and
then you hit an octagonal cuss like Wes here, that on a mere count of
years and hairs might be sized up as old by the superficial observer.
But if I have ever met that man more addicted with vivid nonchalance as
to further continuance of educational facilities than this same Also
Ran, his number has now escaped me. Really aged old people stay where
they was."
"I think, myself, that what makes life so easy and congenial in these
latigos and longitudes is the dearth of law and the ladies." Thus
Pringle, the cynic.
A fourfold outcry ensued; indignant repudiation of the latter heresy.
Their protest rose above the customary subdued and quiet drawl of the
out-of-doors man.
"But has the law no defenders?" demanded Leo. "We've got to have laws
to make us behave."
"Sure thing! Likewise, 'tis the waves that make the tide come in,"
said Jeff. "A good law is as handy as a good pocketbook. But law, as
simply such, independent of its merits, rouses no enthusiasm in my
manly bosom, no more than a signboard the day after Hallowe'en. If it
occurs to me in a moment of emotional sanity that the environments of
the special case in hand call for a compound fracture of the statutes
made and provided--for some totally different cases that happen to be
called by the same name--I fall upon it with my glittering hew-gag,
without no special wonder. For," he declaimed, "I am endowed by nature
with certain inalienable rights, among which are the high justice, the
middle, and the low!"
"And who's to be the judge of whether it's a good law or not? You?"
"Me. Me, every time. Some one must. If I let some other man make up
my mind I've got to use my judgment--picking the man I follow. By
organizing myself into a Permanent Committee of One to do my own
thinking I take my one chance of mistakes instead of two."
"So you believe in doing evil that good may come, do you?"
"Well," said Jeff judicially, "it seems to be at least as good a
proposition as doing good that evil may come of it. Why, Capricorn,
there isn't one thing we call wrong, when other men do it, that hasn't
been lawful, some time or other. When to break a law is to do a wrong,
it's evil. When it's doing right to break a law, it's not evil. Got
that? It's not wrong to keep a just law--and if it's wrong to break an
unjust law I want a new dictionary with pictures of it in the back."
"But laws is useful and excitin' diversions to break up the monogamy,"
said Aforesaid. "And it's a dead easy way to build up a rep. Look
at the edge I've got on you fellows. You're just supposed to be
honest--but I've been proved honest, frequent!"
"Hark!" said Pringle.
A weird sound reached them--the night wrangler, beguiling his lonely
vigil with song.
"Oh, the cuckoo is a pretty bird; she comes in the spring----"
"What do you s'pose that night-hawk thinks about the majesty of the
law?" he said. There was a ringing note in his voice. Smith and
Headlight nodded gravely; their lean, brown faces hardened.
"You haven't heard of it? Old John Taylor, daddy to yonder warbler,
drifted here from the East. Wife and little girl both puny. Taylor
takes up a homestead on the Feliz. He wasn't affluent none. I let him
have my old paint pony, Freckles--him being knee-sprung and not up
to cow-work. To make out an unparalleled team, he got Ed Poe's Billy
Bowlegs, née Gambler, him havin' won a new name by a misunderstanding
with a prairie-dog hole. Taylor paid Poe for him in work. He was a
willin' old rooster, Taylor, but futile and left-handed all over.
"John, Junior, he was only thirteen. Him and the old man moseyed around
like two drunk ants, fixin' up a little log house with rock chimbleys,
a horse-pen and shelter, rail-fencin' of the little _vegas_ to put to
crops, and so on.
"Done you good to drop in and hear 'em plan and figger. They was one
happy family. How Sis Em'ly bragged about their hens layin'! In the
spring we all held a bee and made their _'cequias_ for 'em. Baker, he
loaned 'em a plow. They dragged big branches over the ground for a
harrow. They could milk anybody's cows they was a mind to tame, and the
boys took to carryin' over motherless calves for Mis' Taylor to raise.
Taylor, he done odd jobs, and they got along real well with their
crops. They went into the second winter peart as squirrels.
"But, come spring, Sis wasn't doin' well. They had the Agency doctor.
Too high up and too damp, he said. So the missus and Em'ly they went to
Cruces, where Em'ly could go to school.
"That meant right smart of expense--rentin' a house and all. So the
Johns they hires out. John, Junior, made his dayboo as wrangler for the
Steam Pitchfork, acquirin' the obvious name of Felix.
"The old man he got a job muckin' in Organ mines. Kept his hawses in
Jeff Isaack's pasture, and Saturday nights he'd get one and slip down
them eighteen miles to Cruces for Sunday with the folks.
"Well, you know, a homesteader can't be off his claim more'n six months
at a time.
"I reckon if there was ever a homestead taken up in good faith 'twas
the Butterbowl. They knew the land laws from A to Izzard. Even named
their hound pup Boney Fido!
"But the old man waited at Organ till the last bell rang, so's to draw
down his wages, payday. Then he bundles the folks into his little old
wagon and lights out. Campin' at Casimiro's Well, half-way 'cross, that
ornery Freckles hawse has a fit of malignant nostolgy and projects off
for Butterbowl, afoot, in his hobbles. Next day, Taylor don't overtake
him till the middle of the evenin', and what with going back and what
with Freckles being hobble-sore, he's two days late in reachin' home.
For Lake, of Agua Chiquite, that prosperous person, had been keeping
cases. He entered contest on the Butterbowl, allegin' abandonment.
"Now, if it was me--but, then, if 'twas me I could stay away six years
and two months without no remonstrances from Lake or his likes. I'm
somewhat abandoned myself.
"But poor old Taylor, he's been drug up where they hold biped life
unaccountable high. He sits him down resignedly beneath the sky,
as the poet says, meek and legal. We all don't abnormally like to
precipitate in another man's business, but we makes it up to sorter
saunter in on Lake, spontaneous, and evince our disfavor with a rope.
But Taylor says, 'No.' He allows the Land Office won't hold him morally
responsible for the sinful idiocy of a homesick spotted hawse that's
otherwise reliable.
"He's got one more guess comin'. There ain't no sympathies to
machinery. Your intentions may be strictly honorable, but if you get
your hand caught in the cogs, off it goes, regardless of how handy it
is for flankin' calves, holdin' nails, and such things. 'Absent over
six months. Entry canceled. Contestant is allowed thirty days' prior
right to file. Next.'
"That's the way that decision'll read. It ain't come yet, but it's due
soon.
"This here Felix looks at it just like the old man, only
different--though he ain't makin' no statements for publication. He
come here young, and having acquired the fixed habit of riskin' his
neck, regular, for one dollar per each and every diem, shooin' in the
reluctant steer, or a fool hawse pirouettin' across the pinnacles
with a nosebag on--or, mebbee, just for fun--why, natural, he don't
see why life is so sweet or peace so dear as to put up with any damn
foolishness, as Pat Henry used to say when the boys called on him
for a few remarks. He's a some serious-minded boy, that night-hawk,
and if signs is any indications, he's fixin' to take an appeal under
the Winchester Act. I ain't no seventh son of a son-of-a-gun, but my
prognostications are that he presently removes Lake to another and, we
trust, a better world."
"Good thing, too," grunted Headlight. "This Lake person is sure-lee a
muddy pool."
"Shet your fool head," said Pringle amiably. "You may be on the jury.
I'm going to seek my virtuous couch. Glad we don't have to bed no
cattle, _viva voce_, this night."
"Ain't he the Latin scholar?" said Headlight admiringly. "They blow
about that wire Julius Cæsar sent the Associated Press, but old man
Pringle done him up for levity and precision when he wrote us the
account of his visit to the Denver carnival. Ever hear about it,
Sagittarius?"
"No," said Leo. "What did he say?"
"Hic--hock--hike!"
II
Escondido, half-way of the desert, is designed on simple
lines. The railroad hauls water in tank-cars from Dog Cañon.
There is one depot, one section-house, and one combination
post-office-hotel-store-saloon-stage-station, kept by Ma Sanders and
Pappy Sanders, in about the order mentioned. Also, one glorious green
cottonwood, one pampered rosebush, jointly the pride and delight of
Escondido, ownerless, but cherished by loving care and "toted" tribute
of waste water.
Hither came Jeff and Leo, white with the dust of twenty starlit
leagues, for accumulated mail of Rainbow South. Horse-feeding,
breakfast, gossip with jolly, motherly Ma Sanders, reading and
answering of mail--then their beauty nap; so missing the day's event,
the passing of the Flyer. When they woke Escondido basked drowsily
in the low, westering sun. The far sunset ranges had put off their
workaday homespun brown and gray for chameleon hues of purple and
amethyst; their deep, cool shadows, edged with trembling rose, reached
out across the desert; the velvet air stirred faintly to the promise of
the night.
The agent was putting up his switch-lights; from the kitchen came a
cheerful clatter of tin-ware.
"Now we buy some dry goods and wet," said Leo. They went into the store.
"That decision's come!" shrilled Pappy in tremulous excitement. "It's
too dum bad! Registered letters from Land Office for Taylor and Lake,
besides another for Lake, not registered."
"That one from the Land Office, too?" said Jeff.
"Didn't I jest tell ye? Say, it's a shame! Why don't some of you
fellers----Gosh! If I was only young!"
"It's a travesty on justice!" exclaimed Leo indignantly. "There's
really no doubt but that they decided for Lake, I suppose?"
"Not a bit. He's got the law with him. Then him and the Register is old
cronies. Guess this other letter is from him unofficial, likely."
Jeff seated himself on a box. "How long has this Lake got to do his
filing in, Pappy?"
"Thirty days from the time he signs the receipt for this letter--dum
him!"
"Some one ought to kidnap him," said Leo.
"Why, that's illegal!" Jeff nursed his knee, turned his head to one
side and chanted thoughtfully:
"Said the little Eohippus,
'I'm going to be a horse,
And on my middle finger-nails
To run my earthly course'----"
He broke off and smiled at Leo indulgently. Leo glanced at him sharply;
this was Jeff's warsong aforetime. But it was to Pappy that Jeff spoke:
"Dad, you're a better'n any surgeon. Wish you'd go out and look at
Leo's horse. His ankle's all swelled up. I'll be mixin' me up a toddy,
if Ma's got any hot water. I'm feeling kinder squeamish."
"Hot toddy, this weather? Some folks has queer tastes," grumbled Pappy.
"Ex-_cuse_ me! Me and Leo'll go look at the Charley-horse. That bottle
under the shelf is the best." He bustled out. But Jeff caught Ballinger
by the sleeve.
"Will you hold my garments while I stone Stephen?" he hissed.
"I will," said Leo, meeting Jeff's eye. "Hit him once for me."
"Move the lever to the right, you old retrograde, and get Pappy to
gyratin' on his axis some fifteen or twenty minutes, you listenin'
reverently. Meanwhile, I'll make the necessary incantations. Git! Don't
look so blamed intelligent, or Pappy'll be suspicious."
Bransford hastened to the kitchen. "Ma Sanders, a bronc fell on me
yesterday and my poor body is one big stone bruise. Can I borrow some
boiling water to mix a small prescription, or maybe seven? One when you
first feel like it, and repeat at intervals, the doctor says."
"Don't you get full in _my_ house, Jeff Bransford, or I'll feed you to
the hawgs. You take three doses, and that'll be a-plenty for you."
Jeff put the steaming kettle on the rusty store stove, used as a
waste-paper basket through the long summer. Touching off the papers
with a match, he smashed an empty box and put it in. Then he went into
the post-office corner and laid impious hands on the United States Mail.
First he steamed open Lake's unregistered letter from the Land Office.
It was merely a few typewritten lines, having no reference to the
Butterbowl: "Enclosing the Plat of TP. 14 E. of First Guide Meridan
East Range S. of 3d Standard Parallel South, as per request."
He paused to consider. His roving eye lit on the wall, where the
Annual Report of the Governor of New Mexico hung from a nail. "The
very thing," he said. Pasted in the report was a folded map of the
Territory. This he cut out, refolded it till it slipped in the violated
envelope, dabbed the flap neatly with Pappy's mucilage, and returned
the letter to its proper pigeonhole.
He replenished the fire with another box, subjected Lake's registered
letter to the steaming process and opened it with delicate caution. It
was the decision; it was in Lake's favor; and it went into the fire.
Substituting for it the Plat of TP. 14 and the accompanying letter he
resealed it with workmanlike neatness, and then restored it with a
final inspection. "The editor sits on the madhouse floor, and pla-ays
with the straws in his hair!" he murmured, beaming with complacent
pride and reaching for the bottle.
Pappy and Leo found him with his hands to the blaze, shivering. "I
feel like I was going to have a chill," he complained. But with a few
remedial measures he recuperated sufficiently to set off for Rainbow
after supper.
"Charley's ankle seems better," said Leo artlessly.
"Don't you lay no stress on Charley's ankle," said Jeff, in a burst of
confidence. "Where ignorance is bliss, 'tis folly to be otherwise.
Just let Charley's ankle slip your memory."
The following day Bransford drew rein at Wes Pringle's shack and
summoned him forth.
"Mr. John Wesley Also-Ran Pringle," he said impressively, "I have
taken a horse-ride over here to put you through your cataclysm. Will
you truthfully answer the rebuses I shall now propound to the best of
your ability, and govern yourself accordingly till the surface of Hades
congeals to glistening bergs, and that with no unseemly curiosity?"
"Is it serious?" asked Pringle anxiously.
"This is straight talk."
Pringle took a long look and held up his hand. "I will," he said
soberly.
"John Wesley, do you or do you not believe Stephen W. Lake, of Agua
Chiquite, to be a low-down, coniferous skunk by birth, inclination and
training?"
"I do."
"John Wesley, do you or do you not possess the full confidence and
affection of Felix, the night-hawk, otherwise known and designated as
John Taylor, Junior, of Butterbowl, Esquire?"
"I do."
"Do you, John Wesley Pringle, esteem me, Jeff Bransford, irrespective
of color, sex or previous condition of turpitude, to be such a one as
may be safely tied to when all the hitching-posts is done pulled up,
and will you now promise to love, honor and obey me till the cows come
home, or till further orders?"
"I do--I will. And may God have mercy on my soul."
"Here are your powders, then. Do you go and locate the above-mentioned
and described Felix, and impart to him, under the strict seal of
secrecy, these tidings, to wit, namely: That you have a presentiment,
almost amounting to conviction, that the Butterbowl contest is decided
in Lake's favor, but that your further presentiments is that said Lake
will not use his prior right. If Taylor should get such a decision from
the Land Office don't let him or Felix say a word to no one. If Mr.
B. Body should ask, tell 'em 'twas a map, or land laws, or something.
Moreover, said Felix he is not to stab, cut, pierce or otherwise
mutilate said Lake, nor to wickedly, maliciously, feloniously and
unlawfully fire at or upon the person of said Lake with any rifle,
pistol, musket or gun, the same being then and there loaded with powder
and with balls, shots, bullets or slugs of lead or other metal. You
see to that, personal. I'd go to him myself, but he don't know me well
enough to have confidence in my divinations.
"You promulgate these prophecies as your sole personal device and
construction--_sabe_? Then, thirty days after Lake signs a receipt for
his decision--and you will take steps to inform yourself of that--you
sidle casually down to Roswell with old man Taylor and see that he puts
preëmption papers on the Butterbowl. Selah!"
III
The first knowledge Lake had of the state of affairs was when the
Steam Pitchfork punchers informally extended to him the right hand
of fellowship (hitherto withheld) under the impression that he had
generously abstained from pushing home his vantage. When, in the
mid-flood of his unaccountable popularity, the situation dawned upon
him, he wisely held his peace. He was a victim of the accomplished
fact. Taylor had already filed his preëmption. So Lake reaped volunteer
harvest of good-will, bearing his honors in graceful silence.
On Lake's next trip to Escondido, Pappy Sanders laid aside his marked
official hauteur. Lake stayed several days, praised the rosebush and Ma
Sanders' cookery, and indulged in much leisurely converse with Pappy.
Thereafter he had a private conference with Stratton, the Register of
the Roswell Land Office. His suspicion fell quite naturally on Felix,
and on Jeff as accessory during the fact.
So it was that, when Jeff and Leo took in Roswell fair (where Jeff won
a near-prize at the roping match), Hobart, the United States Marshal,
came to their room. After introducing himself he said:
"Mr. Stratton would like to see you, Mr. Bransford."
"Why, that's all right!" said Jeff genially. "Some of my very great
grandfolks was Dacotahs and I've got my name in 'Who's Sioux'--but I'm
not proud! Trot him around. Exactly who is Stratton, anyhow?"
"He's the Register of the Land Office--and he wants to see you there
on very particular business. I'd go if I was you," said the Marshal
significantly.
"Oh, that way!" said Jeff. "Is this an arrest, or do you just give me
this _in_-vite semi-officiously?"
"You accuse yourself, sir. Were you expecting arrest? That sounds like
a bad conscience."
"Don't you worry about my conscience. 'If I've ever done anything I'm
sorry for I'm glad of it.' Now this Stratton party--is he some aged and
venerable? 'Cause, if he is, I waive ceremony and seek him in his lair
at the witching hour of two this _tarde_. And if not, not."
"He's old enough--even if there were no other reasons."
"Never mind any other reasons. It shall never be said that I fail to
reverence gray hairs. I'll be there."
"I guess I'll just wait and see that you go," said the Marshal.
"Have you got any papers for me?" asked Jeff politely.
"No."
"This is my room," said Jeff. "This is my fist. This is me. That is my
door. Open it, Leo. Mr. Hobart, you will now make rapid forward motions
with your feet, alternately, like a man removing his company from where
it is not desired--or I'll go through you like a domesticated cyclone.
See you at two, sharp!" Hobart obeyed. He was a good judge of men.
Jeff closed the door. "'We went upon the battlefield,'" he said
plaintively, "'before us and behind us, and every which-a-way we
looked, we seen a roscerhinus.' We went into another field--behind us
and before us, and every which-a-way we looked, we seen a rhinusorus.
Mr. Lake has been evidently browsin' and pe-rusing around, and poor
old Pappy, not being posted, has likely been narratin' about Charley's
ankle and how I had a chill. Wough-ough!"
"It looks that way," confessed Leo. "_Did_ you have a chill, Jeff?"
Jeff's eyes crinkled. "Not so nigh as I am now. But shucks! I've been
in worse emergencies, and I always emerged. Thanks be, I can always do
my best when I have to. Oh, what a tangled web we weave when we don't
keep in practice! If I'd just come out straightforward and declared
myself to Pappy, he'd 'a' tightened up his drawstrings and forgot all
about my chill. But, no, well as I know from long experience that good
old human nature's only too willin' to do the right thing and the fair
thing--if somebody'll only tip it off to 'em--I must play a lone hand
and not even call for my partner's best. Well, I'm goin' to ramify
around and scrutinize this here Stratton's numbers, equipments and
disposition. Meet me in the office at the fatal hour!"
* * * * *
The Marshal wore a mocking smile. Stratton, large, florid, well-fed
and eminently respectable, turned in his revolving chair with a severe
and majestic motion; adjusted his glasses in a prolonged and offensive
examination, and frowned portentously.
"Fine large day, isn't it?" observed Jeff affably. "Beautiful little
city you have here." He sank into a chair. Smile and attitude were of
pleased and sprightly anticipation.
A faint flush showed beneath Stratton's neatly-trimmed mutton-chops.
Such jaunty bearing was exasperating to offended virtue. "Ah--who is
this other person, Mr. Hobart?"
"Pardon my rudeness!" Jeff sprang up and bowed brisk apology. "Mr.
Stratton, allow me to present Mr. Ballinger, a worthy representative
of the Yellow Press. Mr. Stratton--Mr. Ballinger!"
"I have a communication to make to you," said the displeased Mr.
Stratton, in icy tones, "which, in your own interest, should be
extremely private." The Marshal whispered to him; Stratton gave Leo a
fiercely intimidating glare.
"Communicate away," said Jeff airily. "Excommunicate, if you want to.
Mr. Ballinger, as a citizen, is part owner of this office. If you want
to bar him you'll have to change the venue to your private residence.
And then I won't come."
"Very well, sir!" Mr. Stratton rose, inflated his chest and threw
back his head. His voice took on a steady roll. "Mr. Bransford, you
stand under grave displeasure of the law! You are grievously suspected
of being cognizant of, if not actually accessory to, the robbery of
the United States Mail by John Taylor, Junior, at Escondido, on the
eighteenth day of last October. You may not be aware of it, but you
have an excellent chance of serving a term in the penitentiary!"
Jeff pressed his hands between his knees and leaned forward. "I'm
sure I'd never be satisfied there," he said, with conviction. His
white teeth flashed in an ingratiatory smile. "But why suspect
young John?--why not old John?" He paused, looking at the Register
attentively. "H'm!--you're from Indiana, I believe, Mr. Stratton?" he
said.
"The elder Taylor, on the day in question, is fully accounted for,"
said Hobart. "Young Taylor claims to have passed the night at Willow
Springs, alone. But no one saw him from breakfast time the seventeenth
till noon on the nineteenth."
"He rarely ever has any one with him when he's alone. That may account
for them not seeing him at Willow," suggested Jeff. He did not look at
Hobart, but regarded Stratton with an air of deep meditation.
The Register paced the floor slowly, ponderously, with an impressive
pause at each turn, tapping his left hand with his eyeglass to
score his points. "He had ample time to go to Escondido and return.
The envelope in which Mr. Lake's copy of this office's decision in
the Lake-Taylor contest was enclosed has been examined. It bears
unmistakable signs of having been tampered with." Turning to mark the
effect of these tactics, he became aware of his victim's contemplative
gaze. It disconcerted him. He resumed his pacing. Jeff followed him
with a steady eye.
"In the same mail I sent Mr. Lake another letter. The envelope was
unfortunately destroyed, Mr. Lake suspecting nothing. A map had been
substituted for its contents, and they, in turn, were substituted for
the decision in the registered letter, with the evident intention of
depriving Mr. Lake of his prior right to file."
"By George! It sounds probable." Jeff laughed derisively. "So that's
it! And here we all thought Lake let it go out of giddy generosity! My
stars, but won't he get the horse-smile when the boys find out?"
Stratton controlled himself with an effort. "We have decided not to
push the case against you if you will tell what you know," he began.
Jeff lifted his brows. "_We?_ And who's _we_? You two? I should have
thought this was a post-office lay."
"We are investigating the affair," explained Hobart.
"I see! As private individuals. Yes, yes. Does Lake pay you by the day
or by the job?"
Stratton, blazing with anger, smote his palm heavily with his fist.
"Young man! Young man! Your insolence is unbearable! We are trying to
spare you--as you had no direct interest in the matter and doubtless
concealed your guilty knowledge through a mistaken and distorted sense
of honor. But you tempt us--you tempt us! You don't seem to realize the
precarious situation in which you stand."
"What I don't see," said Jeff, in puzzled tones, "is why you bother
to spare me at all. If you can prove this, why don't you cinch me and
Felix both? Why do you want me to tell you what you already know? And
if you can't prove it--who the hell cares what you suspect?"
"We will arrest you," said Stratton thickly, "just as soon as we can
make out the papers!"
"Turn your wolf loose, you four-flushers! You may make me trouble,
but you can't prove anything. Speaking of trouble--how about you, Mr.
Stratton?" As a spring leaps, released from highest tension, face and
body and voice flashed from passive indolence to sudden, startling
attack. His arm lashed swiftly out as if to deliver the swordsman's
stabbing thrust; the poised body followed up to push the stroke home.
"You think your secret safe, don't you? It's been some time ago."
Words only--yet it might have been a very sword's point past Stratton's
guard. For the Register flinched, staggered, his arrogant face grew
mottled, his arm went up. He fell back a step, silent, quivering,
leaning heavily on a chair. The Marshal gave him a questioning glance.
Jeff kept on.
"You're prominent in politics, business, society, the church. You've a
family to think of. It's up to you, Mr. Stratton. Is it worth while?
Had we better drop it with a dull, sickening thud?"
Stratton collapsed into the chair, a shapeless bundle, turning a
shriveled, feeble face to the Marshal in voiceless imploring.
Unhesitating, Hobart put a hand on his shoulder. "That's all right,
old man! We won't give you away. Brace up!" He nodded Jeff to the door.
"You win!" he said. Leo followed on tip-toe.
"Why, the poor old duck!" said Jeff remorsefully, in the passage. "Wish
I hadn't come down on him so hard. I overdid it that time. Still, if I
hadn't----"
At the Hondo Bridge Jeff looked back and waved a hand. "Good-by, old
town! Now we go, gallopy-trot, gallopy, gallopy-trot!" He sang, and the
ringing hoofs kept time and tune,
"Florence Mehitabel Genevieve Jane,
She came home in the wind an' the rain,
She came home in the rain an' the snow;
'Ain't a-goin' to leave my home any mo'!'"
"Jeff," said the mystified Ballinger, spurring up beside him, "what has
the gray-haired Register done? Has murder stained his hands with gore?"
Jeff raised his bridle hand.
"Gee! Leo, I don't know! I just taken a chance!"
CHAPTER I
THE PITCHER THAT WENT TO THE WELL
"When I bend my head low and listen at the ground,
I can hear vague voices that I used to know,
Stirring in dim places, faint and restless sound;
I remember how it was when the grass began to grow."
--_Song of The Wandering Dust_,
ANNA HEMPSTEAD BRANCH.
The pines thinned as she neared Rainbow Rim, the turfy glades grew
wider; she had glimpses of open country beyond--until, at last,
crossing a little spit of high ground, she came to the fairest spot in
all her voyage of exploration and discovery. She sank down on a fallen
log with a little sigh of delight.
The steep bank of a little cañon broke away at her feet--a cañon which
here marked the frontier of the pines, its farther side overgrown with
mahogany bush and chaparral--a cañon that fell in long, sinuous curves
from the silent mystery of forest on Rainbow Crest behind her, to widen
just below into a rolling land, parked with green-black powderpuffs
of juniper and cedar; and so passed on to mystery again, twisting
away through the folds of the low and bare gray hills to the westward,
ere the last stupendous plunge over the Rim to the low desert, a mile
toward the level of the waiting sea.
Facing the explorer, across the little cañon, a clear spring bubbled
from the hillside and fell with pleasant murmur and tinkle to a pool
below, fringed with lush emerald--a spring massed about with wild
grapevine, shining reeds of arrow-weed; a tangle of grateful greenery,
jostling eagerly for the life-giving water. Draped in clinging vines,
slim acacias struggled up through the jungle; the exquisite fragrance
of their purple bells gave a final charm to the fairy chasm.
But the larger vision! The nearer elfin beauty dwindled, was lost,
forgotten. Afar, through a narrow cleft in the gray westward hills,
the explorer's eye leaped out over a bottomless gulf to a glimpse
of shining leagues midway of the desert greatness--an ever-widening
triangle that rose against the peaceful west to long foothill reaches,
to a misty mountain parapet, far-beckoning, whispering of secrets,
things dreamed of, unseen, beyond the framed and slender arc of vision.
A land of enchantment and mystery, decked with strong barbaric colors,
blue and red and yellow, brown and green and gray; whose changing ebb
and flow, by some potent sorcery of atmosphere, distance and angle,
altered, daily, hourly; deepening, fading, combining into new and
fantastic lines and shapes, to melt again as swiftly to others yet more
bewildering.
The explorer? It may be mentioned in passing that any other would
have found that fairest prospect even more wonderful than did the
explorer, Miss Ellinor Hoffman. We will attempt no clear description
of Miss Ellinor Hoffman. Dusky-beautiful she was; crisp, fresh and
sparkling; tall, vigorous, active, strong. Yet she was more than
merely beautiful--warm and frank and young; brave and kind and true.
Perhaps, even more than soft curves, lips, glory of hair or bewildering
eyes, or all together, her chiefest charm was her manner, her frank
friendliness. Earth was sweet to her, sweeter for her.
This by way of aside and all to no manner of good. You have no picture
of her in your mind. Remember only that she was young--
"The stars to drink from and the sky to dance on"
--young and happy, and therefore beautiful; that the sun was shining in
a cloudless sky, the south wind sweet and fresh, buds in the willow.
* * * * *
The peace was rent and shivered by strange sounds, as of a giant
falling downstairs. There was a crash of breaking boughs beyond the
cañon, a glint of color, a swift black body hurtling madly through
the shrubbery. The girl shrank back. There was no time for thought,
hardly for alarm. On the farther verge the bushes parted; an apparition
hurled arching through the sunshine, down the sheer hill--a glorious
and acrobatic horse, his black head low between his flashing feet;
red nostrils wide with rage and fear; foam flecks white on the black
shoulders; a tossing mane; a rider, straight and tall, superb--to all
seeming an integral part of the horse, pitch he never so wildly.
The girl held her breath through the splintered seconds. She thrilled
at the shock and storm of them, straining muscles and white hoofs,
lurching, stumbling, sliding, lunging, careening in perilous arcs. She
saw stones that rolled with them or bounded after; a sombrero whirled
above the dust and tumult like a dilatory parachute; a six-shooter
jolted up into the air. Through the dust-clouds there were glimpses of
a watchful face, hair blown back above it; a broken rein snapped beside
it, saddle-strings streamed out behind; a supple body that swung from
curve to easy curve against shock and plunge, that swayed and poised
and clung, and held its desperate dominion still. The saddle slipped
forward; with a motion incredibly swift, as a hat is whipped off in
a gust of wind, it whisked over withers and neck and was under the
furious feet. Swifter, the rider! Cat-quick, he swerved, lit on his
feet, leaped aside.
Alas, oh, rider beyond compare, undefeated champion, Pride of Rainbow!
Alas, that such thing should be recorded! He leaped aside to shun the
black frantic death at his shoulder; his feet were in the treacherous
vines: he toppled, grasped vainly at an acacia, catapulted out and
down, head first; so lit, crumpled and fell with a prodigious splash
into the waters of the pool! _Ay di mi, Alhama!_
The blankets lay strewn along the hill; but observe that the long lead
rope of the hackamore (a "hackamore," properly _jaquima_, is, for
your better understanding, merely a rope halter) was coiled at the
saddle-horn, held there by a stout hornstring. As the black reached
the level the saddle was at his heels. To kick was obvious, to go away
not less so; but this new terror clung to the maddened creature in
his frenzied flight--between his legs, in the air, at his heels, his
hip, his neck. A low tree leaned from the hillside; the aërial saddle
caught in the forks of it, the bronco's head was jerked round, he was
pulled to his haunches, overthrown; but the tough hornstring broke, the
freed coil snapped out at him; he scrambled up and bunched his glorious
muscles in a vain and furious effort to outrun the rope that dragged at
his heels, and so passed from sight beyond the next curve.
Waist-deep in the pool sat the hatless horseman, or perhaps horseless
horseman were the juster term, steeped in a profound calm. That last
phrase has a familiar sound; Mark Twain's, doubtless--but, all things
considered, steeped is decidedly the word. One gloved hand was in the
water, the other in the muddy margin of the pool: he watched the final
evolution of his late mount with meditative interest. The saddle was
freed at last, but its ex-occupant still sat there, lost in thought.
Blood trickled, unnoted, down his forehead.
The last stone followed him into the pool; the echoes died on the
hills. The spring resumed its pleasant murmur, but the tinkle of
its fall was broken by the mimic waves of the pool. Save for this
troubled sloshing against the banks, the slow-settling dust and the
contemplative bust of the one-time centaur, no trace was left to mark
the late disastrous invasion.
The invader's dreamy and speculative gaze followed the dust of the
trailing rope. He opened his lips twice or thrice, and spoke, after
several futile attempts, in a voice mild, but clearly earnest:
"Oh, you little eohippus!"
The spellbound girl rose. Her hand was at her throat; her eyes were big
and round, and her astonished lips were drawn to a round, red O.
Sharp ears heard the rustle of her skirts, her soft gasp of amazement.
The merman turned his head briskly, his eye met hers. One gloved hand
brushed his brow; a broad streak of mud appeared there, over which the
blood meandered uncertainly. He looked up at the maid in silence: in
silence the maid looked down at him. He nodded, with a pleasant smile.
"Good-morning!" he said casually.
At this cheerful greeting, the astounded maid was near to tumbling
after, like Jill of the song.
"Er--good-morning!" she gasped.
Silence. The merman reclined gently against the bank with a comfortable
air of satisfaction. The color came flooding back to her startled face.
"Oh, are you hurt?" she cried.
A puzzled frown struggled through the mud.
"Hurt?" he echoed. "Who, me?... Why, no--leastwise, I guess not."
He wiggled his fingers, raised his arms, wagged his head doubtfully and
slowly, first sidewise and then up and down; shook himself guardedly,
and finally raised tentative boot-tips to the surface. After this
painstaking inspection he settled contentedly back again.
"Oh, no, I'm all right," he reported. "Only I lost a big, black, fine,
young, nice horse somehow. You ain't seen nothing of him, have you?"
"Then why don't you get out?" she demanded. "I believe you are hurt."
"Get out? Why, yes, ma'am. Certainly. Why not?" But the girl was
already beginning to clamber down, grasping the shrubbery to aid in the
descent.
Now the bank was steep and sheer. So the merman rose, tactfully
clutching the grapevines behind him as a plausible excuse for turning
his back. It followed as a corollary of this generous act that he must
needs be lame, which he accordingly became. As this mishap became
acute, his quick eyes roved down the cañon, where he saw what gave him
pause; and he groaned sincerely under his breath. For the black horse
had taken to the parked uplands, the dragging rope had tangled in a
snaggy tree-root, and he was tracing weary circles in bootless effort
to be free.
Tactful still, the dripping merman hobbled to the nearest shade
wherefrom the luckless black horse should be invisible, eclipsed by the
intervening ridge, and there sank down in a state of exhaustion, his
back to a friendly tree-trunk.